A Spectator's Notebook
WE are likely, I understand, to hear very shortly of important housing developments. The Govern- ment seems more concerned at the moment with economy than with what many people would regard as wise expenditure, but an unofficial movement is on foot to take advantage of the plethora of cheap money floating about, with a_ view to tackling the slum problem and relieving the heavy unemployment in the building industry at the same time. The housing shortage has been pretty well met, in the sense that there are not many people wanting a roof and unable to find it, but hundreds of thousands of persons are living still in intolerable conditions. If bold enough enterprises are set on _ foot, so that mass production methods can be adopted, good houses can be made as cheap as bad ones, indeed, cheaper, for slum rents are scandalously high: The 1930 Housing Act confers wide powers of acquisition of sites, brickworks are clamouring for orders, brick- layers and plasterers arc crying out for work. As for the money, an appeal to the public to invest in such a cause, with the prospect of a four per cent. return, ought to be practicable enough. Recent letters to the Spectator by Major Nathan and Sir Harold Bellman as to the part the building societies might play indicate another possible solution of the financial problem.
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